'Well, you _are_ a half an inch longer than me, I think--don't you?'
I was fully an inch taller, so I had no difficulty in making the proposed
admission.
'Well, you do look handsome! doesn't she, Quinzy, lass? but your frock
comes down almost to your heels--it does.'
And she glanced from mine to hers, and made a little kick up with the heel
of the navvy boot to assist her in measuring the comparative distance.
'Maybe mine's a thought too short?' she suggested. 'Who's there? Oh! it's
you, is it?' she cried as Mother Hubbard appeared at the door. 'Come in,
L'Amour--don't you know, lass, you're always welcome?'
She had come to let us know that Uncle Silas would be happy to see me
whenever I was ready; and that my cousin Millicent would conduct me to the
room where he awaited me.
In an instant all the comic sensations awakened by my singular cousin's
eccentricities vanished, and I was thrilled with awe. I was about to see
in the flesh--faded, broken, aged, but still identical--that being who had
been the vision and the problem of so many years of my short life.
CHAPTER XXXII
_UNCLE SILAS_
I thought my odd cousin was also impressed with a kind of awe, though
different in degree from mine, for a shade overcast her face, and she was
silent as we walked side by side along the gallery, accompanied by the
crone who carried the candle which lighted us to the door of that apartment
which I may call Uncle Silas's presence chamber.
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